Nightmare Wedding
by SylvanDryad
Summary: We all know Luke and Mara's wedding was perfect, but what if it wasn't? Reviews welcome.


Disclaimer: I do not, have never, nor ever will own these characters. I may feel like they have taken up residence in my soul but that in no way gives me ownership. No, they belong to George Lucas and Lucasfilm. I am not making any money from this story. Do you really think anyone would pay me for this?  
  
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This story came from a binge of Luke and Mara stories, and my dark penchant for torturing SW characters. We all know their wedding would be perfect, but what if it wasn't? My apologies for the schmaltzy ending.  
  
Enjoy(, it's short.  
  
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Nightmare Wedding  
  
Two days before her own, Mara Jade decided that she hated weddings and if, if, she actually went through with this one, she would never ever do it again. Leia'd laughed upon hearing this declaration from her sister- in-law to be, but slowly her opinion began to match Mara's. So far, the wedding plans had been nothing but one disaster after another.  
  
The engagement announcement had been marred by an assassination attempt that the holo-journalists ate up for weeks after. The imperial loyalist had infiltrated New Republic Security and that led to an investigation that would take years to resolve.  
  
Neither Mara nor Luke could so much as step outside their apartments without being absolutely hounded by camera sentients. Even when they said nothing, their facial expressions were recorded and analyzed on the 1800 news. More people watched the documentaries on their lives than had watched the footage of the signing of the peace treaty. According to NR news, by now the wedding had apparently been called off six times, Mara'd been pregnant twice, and Luke had had three affairs. Even Mara had been forced into hysterical spasms over that one. Luke had barely had three relationships total, let alone three at once on top of being engaged to one of the most notorious assassins in the galaxy.  
  
Luke didn't find it quite as humourous. These days he hated the spotlight almost as much as Mara did. He often thought to himself that if he'd stayed on Tatooine and become a moisture farmer like Uncle Owen wanted, he wouldn't have to go through this over something as personal as his wedding. One night as they sat at dinner together in a bar deep below Coruscant's surface where the reporters would not be looking for them, he shook his head and said, "Let's go to Tatooine and elope".  
  
Mara didn't look up from her menu.  
  
"Your sister would murder us".  
  
"You could take her".  
  
"Not when we've been undiplomatic", she shot back.  
  
"Point, but at least consider it".  
  
She smiled.  
  
"I have actually, believe me, I have. Threepio dug up the ceremony for me three weeks ago".  
  
"And?"  
  
"I figured that after all's said and done, I prefer holojournalists to jawa officiates. Besides, we have so many more options here".  
  
Luke had laughed, and dropped the subject, but Mara soon came to regret her decision as more and more went wrong.  
  
The cake fell, twice, and then someone dropped it.  
  
Their planned reception hall was shut for fumigation.  
  
The textile workers on Nahren went on strike leaving Mara with a dress made partially of Nahrenian silk and partially of Naboo wool. It itched like anything.  
  
The flowers came too early and wilted  
  
The second hall burned down.  
  
"Are you sure this is all the will of the Force?" Mara asked her fiancé after this news was handed to them. He just shot her a weary glare and the air got very heavy in the room. Mara spent that night at Leia and Han's place.  
  
Then, the night before the wedding, the chef took one look at the shell fish and said he could not work with such filth.  
  
"If you had only planned the wedding three years ago, I could have used fresh Altarian scallops, they were magnifico", he lamented to Luke over the crate of shells, unreturnable.  
  
"Yeah, and if we'd gotten married twenty-five years ago we could have held it in the Alderaanian High Court", Luke snapped, jedi calm a foreign concept by now. He'd miscalculated when he'd figured most Old Republic jedi didn't marry because that sort of devotion made them vulnerable to the dark side. No, it was the wedding itself that turned them to the dark. He no longer wondered about his father's fall.  
  
"Where are you going?" Mara asked as he shoved the crate at her and stalked from the room.  
  
"To get fitted for a black mask", he snarled at her.  
  
"Make sure you wear a matching tie tomorrow", she shot back, before dumping the shellfish over the chef's head and storming off on her own.  
  
The crowning touch came at midnight when the long conflict between Iphigin and Diamala finally erupted into a full scale war and half the wedding guests were called away to handle the crisis.  
  
The wedding day dawned grey and dull. Chances of rain were 80- 90%. Leia who, wonder of wonders, had been excused from the galactic crisis to deal with one, more personal in nature, helped Mara into her dress and placed the wreath of withered Cardooine roses on her head. Mara wondered why, after all the disasters she'd experienced in her life, she had a great desire to burst into tears and run from the room.  
  
Leia started the wedding procession as the band, having forgotten their music, played the only song they knew by heart: Roll Out The Barrel. Mara walked into the room and the few people in attendance stood up. The holojournalists hovered. The room they'd finally found was in the basement of the palace, bare light bulbs hung from the ceiling, and water from one of the exposed pipes caught Mara on the nose.  
  
Luke stood up by Tionne who was officiating. His new robes had arrived just in time, but they hadn't fit, so he was wearing his old blacks. Vaguely Mara remembered Myrkr when she'd told him they didn't have any formal wear his size. As she reached him, he took her arm and she fell into their mind link letting his love flood into her. The ceremony itself passed in a blur punctuated by the moments she reached around to scratch her back. The wool was itchy! She couldn't reach and Luke had to scratch it for her. Besides that, she said a few things, he said some others and Tionne pronounced them husband and wife.  
  
As they ran out of the shelter of the front of the palace and onto the street, the skies opened and drenched them both instantly. The hoverlimo pulled up and promptly stalled from all the moisture. The wool parts of her dress were shrinking too. Mara groaned but turned to see Luke's eyes twinkling, water pouring down his neck.  
  
"What?" she asked.  
  
He took her hands in his.  
  
"You were right", he said, "This never could have happened on Tatooine".  
  
She laughed and he kissed her as a transport went by spattering them with muddy water. Somehow it had been the most beautiful day of her life.  
  
*The End* 


End file.
